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G.R. No. 187883 June 16, 2009
ATTY. OLIVER O. LOZANO and ATTY. EVANGELINE J. LOZANO-
ENDRIANO, Petitioners,
– versus –
SPEAKER PROSPERO C. NOGRALES, Representative, Majority, House
of Representatives, Respondents
x––––––––––––––––––––––x
G.R. No. 187910
LOUIS “BAROK” C. BIRAOGO, Petitioner
– versus
SPEAKER PROSPERO C. NOGRALES, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Congress of the Philippines, Respondents.

Facts:
The two petitions, filed by their respective petitioners in their capacities as
concerned citizens and taxpayers, prayed for the nullification of House
Resolution No. 1109 entitled “A Resolution Calling upon the Members of
Congress to Convene for the Purpose of Considering Proposals to Amend or
Revise the Constitution, Upon a Three-fourths Vote of All the Members of
Congress,” convening the Congress into a Constituent Assembly to amend
the 1987 Constitution. In essence, both petitions seek to trigger a justiciable
controversy that would warrant a definitive interpretation by this Court of
Section 1, Article XVII, which provides for the procedure for amending or
revising the Constitution. The petitioners contend that the House Resolution
contradicts the procedures set forth by the 1987 Constitution regarding the
amendment or revision of the same as the separate voting of the members of
each House (the Senate and the House of Representatives) is deleted and
substituted with a vote of three-fourths of all the Members of Congress (i.e.,
¾ of the “members of Congress” without distinction as to which institution of
Congress they belong to).

Issue:
Whether the court has the power to review the case of the validity of House
Resolution No. 1109.

Held:
No. The Supreme Court cannot indulge petitioners’ supplications. While some
may interpret petitioners’ moves as vigilance in preserving the rule of law, a
careful perusal of their petitions would reveal that they cannot hurdle the bar
of justiciability set by the Court before it will assume jurisdiction over cases
involving constitutional disputes.
The Court’s power of review may be awesome, but it is limited to actual cases
and controversies dealing with parties having adversely legal claims, to be
exercised after full opportunity of argument by the parties, and limited
further to the constitutional question raised or the very lis mota presented.
The “case-or-controversy” requirement bans this court from deciding
“abstract, hypothetical or contingent questions,” lest the court give opinions
in the nature of advice concerning legislative or executive action

An aspect of the “case-or-controversy” requirement is the requisite of

“ripeness.” In the United States, courts are centrally concerned with whether
a case involves uncertain contingent future events that may not occur as
anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all. Another approach is the
evaluation of the twofold aspect of ripeness: first, the fitness of the issues for
judicial decision; and second, the hardship to the parties entailed by
withholding court consideration. In our jurisdiction, the issue of ripeness is
generally treated in terms of actual injury to the plaintiff. Hence, a question is
ripe for adjudication when the act being challenged has had a direct adverse
effect on the individual challenging it. An alternative road to review similarly
taken would be to determine whether an action has already been
accomplished or performed by a branch of government before the courts may
step in.

In the present case, the fitness of petitioners’ case for the exercise of judicial
review is grossly lacking. In the first place, petitioners have not sufficiently
proven any adverse injury or hardship from the act complained of. In the
second place, House Resolution No. 1109 only resolved that the House of
Representatives shall convene at a future time for the purpose of proposing
amendments or revisions to the Constitution. No actual convention has yet
transpired and no rules of procedure have yet been adopted. More
importantly, no proposal has yet been made, and hence, no usurpation of
power or gross abuse of discretion has yet taken place. In short, House
Resolution No. 1109 involves a quintessential example of an uncertain
contingent future event that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not
occur at all. The House has not yet performed a positive act that would
warrant an intervention from this Court.
As in the case of Tan v. Macapagal, as long as any proposed amendment is
still unacted on by it, there is no room for the interposition of judicial
oversight. Only after it has made concrete what it intends to submit for
ratification may the appropriate case be instituted. Until then, the courts are
devoid of jurisdiction

A party will be allowed to litigate only when he can demonstrate that (1) he
has personally suffered some actual or threatened injury because of the
allegedly illegal conduct of the government; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to
the challenged action; and (3) the injury is likely to be redressed by the
remedy being sought. In the cases at bar, petitioners have not shown the
elemental injury in fact that would endow them with the standing to sue.
Locus standi requires a personal stake in the outcome of a controversy for
significant reasons. It assures adverseness and sharpens the presentation of
issues for the illumination of the Court in resolving difficult constitutional
questions. The lack of petitioners’ personal stake in this case is no more
evident than in Lozano’s three-page petition that is devoid of any legal or
jurisprudential basis.

Neither can the lack of locus standi be cured by the claim of petitioners that
they are instituting the cases at bar as taxpayers and concerned citizens. A
taxpayer’s suit requires that the act complained of directly involves the illegal
disbursement of public funds derived from taxation. It is undisputed that
there has been no allocation or disbursement of public funds in this case as of
yet.

The possible consequence of House Resolution No. 1109 is yet unrealized and
does not infuse petitioners with locus standi

The rule on locus standi is not a plain procedural rule but a constitutional
requirement derived from Section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution, which
mandates courts of justice to settle only “actual controversies involving rights
which are legally demandable and enforceable.”
Moreover, while the Court has taken an increasingly liberal approach to the
rule of locus standi, evolving from the stringent requirements of “personal
injury” to the broader “transcendental importance” doctrine, such liberality is
not to be abused. It is not an open invitation for the ignorant and the ignoble
to file petitions that prove nothing but their cerebral deficit.

IN VIEW WHEREOF, the petitions are dismissed.